Creating Theatre for Clothing Optional/Naked Audiences

Chris Grady

Present: Alex, Ed, Griffyn, Pete, Andrew, Christian

It was really helpful to have 4 people who work closely in, with, and around the Live Art scene in London and Berlin. We explored many existing practitioners and events including (excuse spellings/mishearing) Chris Goode’s Pony Boy Circus, Nic Green’s 50 Women Naked, Hammam-ness, Closet encounter, the Berlin naked fetish scene and a journey naked through a tunnel to reach a naked beautiful world, and the travelling sauna storytelling place, plus a planned bigger sauna artist curated complex. [connections to these would be great].

Some comments/reflections made: Live Art “exposes bodies”, Berlin “has transformed my understanding of naked culture”. Post Weinstein “How do we know we’ve never done something wrong…like looking at a naked person”, The School in Germany which has one day a year where the students and teachers are naked, and the naked free cocktail nights and naked restaurant in London.

No-one could identify a time when theatre has been made for a naked audience, and this continues to feel a timely project. The Live artists found it counter-intuitive and against their way of working to consider the audience and then make the art – without first having a strong reason/core idea for the art.

Suggested explore Live Art’s DIY callout for support, and the feeling that the invitation may provoke artists in a useful way.

We explored the need to bring absolute clarity to the interactions between the audience, and to work out clear ways to advice the audience when it was a period of interaction, and when they needed to be observers so the plot or a part of the show could move forward [This came as a development of a bumble bee joining us from the Audience Interaction session]

We explored the declothing, ritually or at speed or within the open space circle – and the pulling focus it an audience member unclothes when the focus should be on the stage. All things to explore.

We then moved to safety, Yes No Maybe, in terms of encounters between people and one artist who was working by being naked, and never saying “no” to any invitation from an audience member. This led to a reminder of a Peter Morgan 3 hander with no “nos”.

We talked of the need for each member of the audience, and performers, to be responsible for their own psycho-physical being, to be able to use the Law of Two Feet, and to feel that the space is held safely – whilst allowing for risks and edges to be explored.

Next Step: A one day exploration with artists on Fri 6th April in London – which will be clothing optional. If theatremakers and live artists would like to be invited please email me [email protected] .

Thank you for more valuable research information allowing me to move forward to create/commission a work for a known market segment. I am particularly keen to hear from any theatre/venue/space managers who would like to explore programming work and reaching out to a clothing optional audience. Having gone through the preparation and successful delivery of the Hair evening we have practical steps we can take to ensure the safest possible engagement.

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